


Elgara Vallas, Da'len

by QuickSilverFox3



Series: Mag7 Summer Swagbag Challenge [14]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Dalish Origin, During Dragon Age: Inquisition, Gen, Inquisitor Red Harvest, M/M, Minor Goodnight Robicheaux/Billy Rocks, Mutual Pining, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Skyhold (Dragon Age), Slice of Life, inspired by the discord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25359247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickSilverFox3/pseuds/QuickSilverFox3
Summary: Red is sick of dealing with all the human nobles who decide to beg favours from the Inquisitor. Luckily, others can see he is reaching his breaking point
Relationships: Goodnight Robicheaux/Billy Rocks, Red Harvest & Billy Rocks, Red Harvest & Goodnight Robicheaux, Red Harvest/Dorian Pavus, Sam Chisolm & Red Harvest
Series: Mag7 Summer Swagbag Challenge [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789006
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: Mag7 Summer Swagbag Challenge





	Elgara Vallas, Da'len

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mag7 Summer Swagbag July AU prompt: write or draw a crossover with another fandom  
> Dalish is in italics.

“Fuck that.”

Red couldn’t bite his tongue any longer, flinging his judgement as easily as he would shoot one of his arrows. 

Josephine gasped, pretty platitudes already lining up on her tongue, but Red sat back in his seat and stared past his three advisers — Cullen hiding a grin behind one gauntlet, Leliana scrawling down his answers in her neat curling script — towards Sam, leaning against one wall, half hidden in the shadow of a pillar and Cassandra, prowling like an angry jungle cat next to him.

“I believe,” Cassandra began, and Red glanced at her, only briefly, half making sure she wasn’t too angry with him — her scar standing out in stark relief to her pursed lips — half conforming she was still human, and not turned to a shambling darkspawn out of his childhood nightmares, “that a break may be in order.”

Red Harvest nodded once, a sharp short jerk, before turning on his heel and bolting out of the door, falling quickly into the easy rhythm of his bare feet hitting against the cold stone. He could just catch Josephine’s cut-off wail of despair as he rounded the corner and escaped into the early morning sunlight.

⁂

“Hiding already?”

Blackwall’s voice was pitched low, not glancing up at Red’s hiding place as he continued to turn the small piece of wood in his hands — a scrap from one of the catapults — making small notches with his knife.

“Not hiding,” Red corrected him, voice sharper than he intended. He sounded like a child, curled up in the rafters like it was the rigging of his Aravel but he couldn’t help himself.

“Apologies.”

Blackwall fell silent, a comforting sort of silence rather than the judgemental one Red was swiftly becoming used to. How had humans ever gotten anything done with their silences that made him want to claw at his ears, so loud for the absence of noise in their lonely dead houses? They looked at him, and they saw an elf. His friends looked at him and — before they saw him — they saw the Inquisitor, a man chosen by Andraste, not a scared boy, barely a man, cursed by a god he didn’t believe in, bearing the marks of another on his face?

“Hey, Blackwall. Red?  _ Can I see you _ ?”

Sam’s Dalish was better than most, unfamiliar on his tongue, but he tried.

“ _ You talk like my grandfather _ ,” Red scoffed, feeling the knot around his heart lessen as he heard Sam laugh from below, deep, almost rattling the timber beneath him. He rolled off the beam, letting himself fall for a precious heartbeat — stomach flipping, wondering if this would be it — before he rightened himself, feet slamming into the ground and immediately rolling to protect his ankles. He had learned quickly as a child, and this was a lesson he knew well.

“Walk with me?” Sam offered, already beginning to move out of the stable and into the dappled sunlight. Red nodded to Blackwall, and followed, running slightly to catch up.

⁂

“The Iron Bull wanted to remind you that you’re playing cards with him and the Chargers later on today.” 

Sam moved, head high and eyes constantly scanning the crowd, as if he was expecting an attack. Red scratched at the Anchor in his palm, feeling the spike of pain shoot up his wrist, fingers twitching in the too-big leather glove. 

“My Keeper taught me, so I know some tricks he doesn’t yet.” Red grinned to himself, catching sight of it’s twin on Sam’s face before the Seeker wiped it away with a sigh. 

“Don’t lecture me, Sam.”

Red kicked a rock idly, watching it’s passage until it was lost in the press of feet in the press and scuffle of bodies — humans and elves, Qunari and dwarves alike, all clad in the armour of the Inquisition or wearing a symbol of it on their person, a symbol of unity. Red’s stomach rolled in protest, bile gathering hot and thick in his throat. 

He lowered his head, feeling his ears pin back against his skull — the sound distorting as if he was under water — and listened to the thrum of voices in the crowd, forcing his breathing to slow as he mindlessly followed Sam.

The roar of voices from the market place was almost deafening but he could pick out a few more familiar ones from the din.

Vasquez was midway through an argument with a spice merchant, knives rattling in their sheaths as he meant forward, voice loud for a man who could move almost silently. Red listened to the raid fire words he couldn’t understand and felt a pang of loneliness in his chest. Their circumstances were similar after all, adrift in a sea of unfamiliar faces, like so many of his companions.

His thoughts turned to Dorian as easily as he breathed, and Red felt his cheeks flare with heat. The man was infuriating, misguided and flashy; but he had learned, he had changed. Red had faced the demons of a future that could not come to pass at his side, 

Red caught himself mere moments before he ran into Sam’s back, small stones littering the ground digging into his feet as he swallowed down the hiss of pain. Grunts of exertion filled the air, coupled with the dull smack of leather hitting leather, and Red shifted enough to peak around Sam towards the training ring.

The Iron Bull and Horne circled each other, huge leather covered hammers held easily in their capable hands. They moved easily despite their equal height, striking and parrying with a grace that seemed at odds with the perceived notions that Qunari were slow and clumsy. Billy was perched on the fence next to them, fog clinging to his legs and hair — the same colour as the brace of knives on his hips, silver and bone, and deadly as the man who held them — idly tossing a small bag of coins from one hand to the other.

Reflexively, Red scanned the crowd of soldiers for Goodnight, knowing that wherever Billy was, the ex-altus would be nearby. 

“Goodnight is in the mages tower, with Dorian.”

Billy stepped out of the air behind them, sweet smelling fog accompanying him and Red had half-drawn the knife from the sheath at his belt before he realised what had happened.

“You’re going to get yourself stabbed at some point,” Sam said, shaking his head as he returned his own sword to it’s sheath, the sound of grinding metal against metal drawing some curious glances.

“No I won’t,” Billy replied, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “ _ You’re blushing _ ,” he told Red, “ _ Your admirers will be upset.” _

He looked pointedly over Red’s shoulder, a barely noticeable twitch of dark eyes to others, and Red turned. He caught sight of a quick flash of brown hair, a spread of pale vallaslin across dark skin that was turning red before the elf ducked back behind the building. His companion, a young human woman with bright pink cheeks and a long blonde braid was slower on the uptake, meeting Red’s gaze before she was wrenched behind the building.

“I think those two are new,” Same said, tone light and conversational.

“I liked the mage boy. He was always polite,” Billy added, the flicker of a smile breaking through his blank stare.

“Fuck the both of you,” Red declared, moving towards the mages tower. Their laughter followed him for a few steps before they fell into pace behind him.

Noise assailed his senses the moment he stepped into the tower, strange smells coiling around him that he only half recognised — the biting, sharp smell of elfroot remembered from healing potions; and the strange, smoky scent that clung to Dorian like a second skin. Red flinched backwards, feeling his ears pin back against his head, the Anchor almost seeming to shift beneath his skin. He hated it, disgust twisting in his gut.

“Bonjou, little one.”

Goodnight’s voice was bright, a confused blur of rounded Orelsian that his family had maintained for generations, and clipped Tevene. Red stumbled as Goodnight swept him into the room, Sam setting his hip against the doorway and crossing his arms. Billy hopped up onto the back of the chair as Goodnight sat down, a well coordinated move that they had performed thousands of times and never failed to be impressive. 

Billy grinned at Red, before switching his gaze to Goodnight, gently tipping the mage’s head back — throat bared and vulnerable, the edge of a bite peeking out on his collarbone — to kiss the bridge of his nose. 

Red looked away, and caught Dorian’s eye, seeing his own feelings of longing painted across the other man’s face, and twitched his eyes away once more, feeling his cheeks burn.

“I need a favour, Red,” Goodnight said, waiting for Red to glance at him before continuing, “I need to get some supplies from the Emerald Graves, but—”

Goodnight shrugged, gesturing at himself with a careless flick of his wrist. “They will not let an altus go wandering by himself. So, can you go with me?”

Red could feel Sam’s gaze on the back of his neck. It was a clearly an attempt to get him out of Skyhold for a while, something he longed to do after what felt like years of meetings and human nobles who hated him before they even met him — and he hated them right back, knew their words were sugared and deceitful, saw the bruises on their servants and he  _ hated _ them. He longed for open green spaces, the soft tread of the Halla, and the soft sunlight trickling through the trees. It was a lie, but it was an escape Red was desperate to take.

“Would you like to come too, Dorian?” Red asked, ear flicking towards Dorian even as he refused to turn and look at the other man. He heard the mage sigh — dramatic even to the last — but he could hear the grin behind his words.

“I suppose I could trouble myself to go see some  _ trees _ and  _ rain _ .”

“Good. We’ll leave this evening.”

Dorian groaned, knocking his head back against the shelves, but Red only laughed, not bothering to muffle the sound.


End file.
